Little Miracles

You don't choose your family. They are God's gift to you, as you are to them. 

-- Desmond Tutu

I've been thinking a lot about two things lately; my family and my marriage, and how the two are so obviously and so intimately intertwined. 


I was sitting on my unmade bed earlier today with Ava and Ella, all of us in our pj's, hair unbrushed, and none the unhappier for it. We were tickling and laughing and sharing raisins with each other. For whatever reason I had one of those moments while looking at Ava where I was simply struck by the profound mystery and miracle of life; it was one of those moments  in which I was merely in awe of the true miracle that life is...God's creation made capable through our bodies. 


I just looked at the girls and thought,  "Whoa, you were formed through a mysterious alignment of cells from your father and I that grew and grew and grew and here you are." Crazy, isn't it? 


Even cooler is that while this supreme miracle may be mysterious to us, it is not at all to God. Whoa...things I can't even wrap my head around today. 


And when I found the above quote it just seemed so fitting for what I was feeling. 


It's kind of cool how God brings us all together, in whatever way he sees fit. I mean for us, so far, it was through the birth of our girls. For friends of ours in Massachusetts it has been through the adoption of three beautiful foster children. For Lysa Terkeurst, whose story I heard at a church sponsored women's retreat weekend back in October, it was through birth and a really, really amazing adoption story later on. 


God seems to cobble together these lives, full of differing personalities, and leave his stamp on them to say, "ahhhh, I like it that way, and it is good." And I think we do best when we remember that we are a gift to our family and that they are a gift to us, rather than taking things for granted as is so much easier to do sometimes. 


So today I'm thankful for the miracles of life and of families that somehow seem to come together in the most perfect ways.